It is Written

Luke 4:1-4 states, "Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.  And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  And the devil said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.'  But Jesus answered him, saying, 'It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God."  

In this first temptation that comes from Satan toward Jesus, Satan cunningly tries to get Jesus to act in pride to satisfy His desire.  The devil questions His authority by saying, "If you are the Son of God…." Jesus does not sin in pride, but attacks Satan with the living Word of God. Although His flesh must have been very weak after not having any food for 40 days, He was filled with the Holy Spirit who gave Him the strength to say "no" to his desire for food.  He knew that to satisfy His fleshly desire at that moment by proving to Satan that He was God would equal no hope for you and me.  

So apart from another reason to be in love with our Savior, what do we learn from this?  There are probably many lessons from this story, but let us just focus on one.  We learn that Satan works hard at questioning who we are in Christ.  He desires us to doubt the promises of God for our lives.  Just as he said to Jesus, "If you are the Son of God," he will whisper in our ears ... “If you are a child of God, then... (fill in the blank).”  Maybe you don't have the marriage that you dreamed of, the job that you hoped for, the perfect child you prayed for, etc.  There are so many issues in our lives that can tempt us to become prideful.  Yes, if we begin to doubt God, this is a form of pride because we are saying that we can satisfy our lives better than God can.  Just like Jesus, we need to be confident in who we are in Him and filled with the Spirit of God to attack these thoughts that Satan tries to place in our minds.  Replace his lies with the truth of the Word of God.  Find a verse to combat him so that your mind will be renewed.  Then, we can continue to offer hope to the hurting and to those who haven't heard the truth!